


Light Reflects

by Elleth



Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: B2MeM 2018, F/F, Inspired by Music, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-21
Updated: 2018-03-21
Packaged: 2019-04-05 15:27:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 731
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14047236
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elleth/pseuds/Elleth
Summary: On her sickbed, Míriel reflects on her love for Indis.





	Light Reflects

**Author's Note:**

> For B2MeM 2018: A fanwork for a favourite song - [Angels](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nW5AF0m9Zw) by The XX.

Míriel is too tired to remember when she fell in love with Indis, though even in her tiredness it is not hard to recall why. 

The women of the court mill around the private ballroom, many of them Míriel's favourites, formerly - many of them wear her embroidery on their dresses. Living flowers, or flames, or clouds that shimmer in a slant of the light of the Trees as they move through the skies of Aman, while Míriel herself has donned plain grey, greyer than her hair, a garment sent from the Gardens of Lórien, woven with spells of rest, patience, and healing. It has calmed the child in her; his fire is not devouring so much of her, merely smouldering at her insides now, a slow singe that is barely even painful and makes the tiredness all the harder to bear. 

It makes no less bitter that her favourites are shy of her. She knows what she looks like; every mirror told her before she had them covered in cloths, her cheekbones stark as cut glass, and her eyes darkened, bright silver gone to tarnish. She is unwell and dreamt of the smell of fire rising from her as smoke. They all know, and how could they not? Though she cannot blame them, their skittishness hurts her; a different fire of a different origin that eats at her mind, not her body. Still she invites them, because even their reluctant obedience is better than solitude. Sometimes she can look on their laughter and not feel bitter. Sometimes she can look on their sideways glances where she reclines in the shadows at the back of the room on a soft couch, and not wish to join their dances over the brightly-tiled floor. 

Indis is not often invited. It is a long journey down Taniquetil, and she has matters to occupy her own hands and mind, though she writes her quiet, earnest letters often. Míriel envies her her freedom, her energy, her light. But when she comes, always a little late after the dancing has begun - Míriel thinks that part of Indis enjoys an entrance of a certain flair - she strides in a straight line through the dancers, giving them no choice but to make room - straight toward Míriel's couch in the shadows, where she kneels, and kisses the bones that are Míriel's fingers, which look as though they are trying to be needles themselves. 

And Indis is bright, so bright. Míriel's ballroom is built in the western wing of the palace, and only a glass facade divides the corridor before the doors from the outside, so that whenever they open, the light of the Trees spills in with the one entering. Indis herself, entering in that wave of light, is a golden tree - tall as one, and when she does not come in the pious white of the Vanyar, she comes in golden cloth, adorned with glass-wrought flowers of Laurelin in the waves of her hair that chime as she moves - as she lowers her head to kiss Míriel's hand, or lift it to softly kiss Míriel's lips. And even her shadow sparks and dances with refracted light. Míriel does not understand how, but she presses her lips onto those of Indis for her breath and light, to steal some of her ease. Indis is not afraid of her, and Míriel revels in that knowledge as one drowning.

It is all that she should not do. The kisses are long-known, and the fact that Míriel loves Indis, but she has been warned by her healers that nourishing so much fire in her, she cannot bear much more. This is why she wears grey, this is why she stays in the shadows. This is why she drinks only cooling teas, and why ice cubes from the Pelóri are melting on a tray beside her. But when Indis is there - and most of all when she smiles and brings her light, it makes Míriel entertain a hope of dancing in more than idle longing - some slow, stately pace, leaning on Indis' arm, perhaps, so that all others must make way for their circles and uplifted hands as the branches of the Two Trees twining, like to like, though one is dim. 

She is too tired for it after all. But she loves Indis no less for giving her at least the thought of it.


End file.
